Am I liable ?

[kooglesarmy]

Had my o2 phone lost / stolen in mexico 2 weeks ago.

Reported it to the hotel when I realised I no longer had it.

Returned back to the uk this week, rang o2 to report lost/stolen and asked whther it had been used. Yep, to the tune of £1333.

O2 say they will cancel the phone from the day I reported it and I should contact my travel insurers to recover the costs, but I think that is unlikely.

Now, my monthly bill is between £15 and £20.

The High toll / fraud dept (as stated in section 5.5 in the T&Cs) should have spotted this unusual spend and put a temporary block on the phone, which was not done.

Are they in effect in Breach of Contract, or am I still liable ?

Thanks,

[*Twinkle*]

I'm afraid koogles, that you are probably liable. Most phone insurance only covers you from the time you report the theft, I'm no expert but it is something I have always been aware of.

 

I agree that the fraud department probably should have picked up on it tho when it got so high!

 

I would check with your travel insurance company as they are meant to cover financial loss.

 

That's just what I think, and I'm not sure what your next step is but I'm sure someone will come along with proper advice!!

[kooglesarmy]

Thanks for that.

I am still waiting for the claim form to arrive, but the woman on the phone from the insurers laughed when I told her I was looking to claim back the cost. My next step would be perhaps house insurance.

Failing that, I will ring up the fraud manager and ask him what the hell he was doing when some bandit was spending £150 a day ringing his mates.

[buzby]

The networks are great at shifting the blame - but when all is said and done, until the network is informed of the loss, you carry the can. However, if you tell them and they don't block the handset - that's a different matter.

 

It's bad enough losing a phone whilst in the UK, but the ramifications when abroad are horrendous. Mobile phone insurance usually provides this additional loss as part of the policy, but unless you a full all-frills home policy, they'll probably decline.

[lawbunny]

Hey, unfortunately you are liable for all charges up until the point you notify the network that you have lost your phone.

 

As for the charges, you probably would have got cut off when the charges on your bill went higher than your permitted credit limit. However, due to the fact that there can be a delay of hours (or in the case of international calls, a day or two) between the call being made and the details being forwarded on to your network by the foreign network, sometimes once the phone has been cut off due to the credit limit, a lump of huge call charges is applied to the bill whenever the network gets the details.

[kooglesarmy]

I appreciate that.

Why on earth do they put this in the t&c's then when it clearly doesn't work. They let this go on for 2 whole weeks.

5.5 We will monitor usage of the Service via your account for the purpose of

controlling our credit risk and your exposure to fraudulent usage. If usage on your

account gives us cause for concern we will attempt to contact you by text message

or by calling your Mobile Phone. If we are unable to contact you we may have to

restrict use of the Service on your Mobile Phone and/or we will have the right to

bar your Mobile Phone. You will need to contact us before you can use any of the

chargeable aspects of the Service. You may be required to make an interim

payment before the Service can be reinstated.

[buzby]

If your credit limit was reached, then yes - this covers them. However £1000 odd in roamed calls is usually 5-6 times greater than the equivalent UK spend for the same talk-time, so networks have been known to give this lattitude. For all they knew there may have been a family emergency and the spend was legitimate.

[installspark]

It can take anywhere from 48 hours to 28 days for roaming calls to appear on your account depending on the network used. Also with call costs - £1.50 per min to make a call from Mexico, £1.65 to receive a call or voicemail and £6.00 per Mb of data, the costs will soon mount up even with "normal" usage. Accounts are actively monitored under s 5.5 T&C, however with roaming this not instantaneous.

 

Had you reported the loss/theft to O2 at the time your account would have been barred and any subsequent calls made would have been the liability of O2, as you did not report the loss/theft until your return to the UK 2 weeks after the incident you are liable for all call charges made up until the time of reporting.

 

Even with insurance it is unlikely that the insurer will cover the call costs, again because the incident was not reported to O2 at the time of occurrence.

[Son of Shoestring]

The T&C about credit risk is very clearly what this is all about. My guess is that they assessed you were good for the accrued debt and otherwise didn't give a cor blimey. If they assessed that you were not good for the debt accruing they would've pulled the line without hesitation.

 

No disrespect to you personally kooglesarmy, (this is a general moan) but people have got to wake up to the way business operates. There is only one function they are concerned about and that is profit. Where it comes from or by what dubious method is of less consequence. Tricks, deceits, and creative techniques of daylight robbery are there to be used as and when required.

 

We, as a nation have to become less naive and less trusting of big business.

 

Shoestring

[kooglesarmy]

This is the stand that o2 are taking, that because I wasn't using their network, they were unable to monitor it.

Even with this being the case, when the calls hit my account (£150 per day) it still wasn't picked up.

So I am still looking down the barrel of an £1800 quid bill.

[buzby]

Your only possible recourse is to find if any of your existing insurances (holiday, home etc) can take the hit - assuming you didn't opt for mobile phone insurance. For these occasions, it is worth its weight in gold.

[kooglesarmy]

Just giving you an update.

As a gesture of goodwill, O2 have cut the bill by 50% leaving £850.

Pretyt decent of them, but the Mrs reckons this is them admitting some liability.

Any thoughts ?

Chris

[buzby]

I'd ask your missus where this could be construed as any admission of liability on their part, but let's assume for a moment she's right. It wasn't their fault that the bill was run up, so in order to get closure, they've agreed to waive their charges and possibly any profit, whilst they're paying the actual cost of the calls to the other network. This way you learn a lesson (!) and you don't get your credit file wrecked.

 

I think it's a generous deal, because if it came to court they could rely on the T& Cs that the calls were run up whilst the phone was in your care and you didn't exercise basic security procedures. (handset PIN lock, etc), so since they've agreed to mitigate their loss as a way to settlement, I'd take it. Only if you shared no blame would it be worthwhile challenging them, and that isn't the case here. There may be a little bit of pain, but not as bad as it could be!

[Bookworm]

You said you reported the theft to the hotel, did you report it to the police and obtained a police report?

 

If you didn't, then you'll likely be wasting your time with the travel insurance for cost of both phone and calls.

 

If you did, it's a different story. Whilst the onus is on you to minimise yours and the phone provider's loss by notifying them as soon as possible, there are circumstances where it isn't possible. You could be in an area where communications are not readily available, for example. Or if you had been mugged and lying in a coma in hospital, or plenty of other circumstances where contacting the company in the UK can't be done, or not straight away. In the lack of knowledge of the circumstances of exactly where you were, people are being far too quick in telling you you are wholly responsible for the costs.

 

If you were in a hotel with phones, fax, internet access and what not, then yes, there is no excuse and you should have notified them ASAP to block your phone, and the insurance will tell you the same. On the other hand, if you were miles and miles from means of international communication, it would be a different matter and as long as you had a police report, you should try and pursue your travel insurers for the costs of the phone + phone calls made from when it was stolen.

 

The company offering you to cut the bill is no admission of liability whatsoever, they just don't want it to drag on with the possibility of having their sky-high international charges examined from close-up, knowing that they make astronomical profits from them, so they're trying to make you go away with the GOGW.

 

You can dig your heels in and insist that they are in breach of their own T&Cs and try to get them to reduce the bill further (or totally, although I wouldn't hold my breath on that one), and/or claim under the travel insurance, IF the conditions I described above are met. Either way, it's far from a given that you'll get much further, and it won't be an easy road.

 

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

[buzby]

You can dig your heels in and insist that they are in breach of their own T& Cs and try to get them to reduce the bill further (or totally, although I wouldn't hold my breath on that one)

 

I just have to ask - WHICH T&C did the network breach? The impression I get from your post, is that the OP appears to owe no duty of care to the network. Surely, you're not claiming this?

[Bookworm]

5.5, as quoted by OP. Now, I am not familiar with the totality of their T&Cs, so it may be that it says different elsewhere, but based solely on that section quotes, I would say that:

a) The network didn't in fact monitor the usage (I don't see that it says in that section that this might not be possible due to roaming, etc... so they can't just pull that one out of the hat) and therefore did not control their own credit risk, and did not reduce OP's exposure to fraudulent use.

b) Failure to a) means they didn't spot the unusual activity, and did not attempt to contact OP.

c) Failure to b) means they didn't restrict the use of mobile phone/block it.

 

If you can point where I have said OP has no duty of care to network, that would be just grand. In fact, I believe I very clearly stated that where circumstances made it possible, OP would have little or no excuse not to have notified the phone company. But likewise, the network have a duty to OP and themselves, as specified in the above-quoted section of the T&Cs, and they certainly seem to have failed in exercising that duty of care.

 

Incidentally, unless the T&Cs state somewhere very specifically that it is a condition that the phone should be locked/PINned at all times, then it is merely a recommendation, and I would argue does not form part of said duty of care, not even as an implied term.

 

No doubt you'll yet again disagree.

[buzby]

For your consideration; The calls made were NOT on the home network, therefore 'monitoring usage' cannot be obtained in real-time. Providing the validation call to the home network via the roamed network does not flag up an anomaly (stolen, blocked etc) then roamed access is not ordinarily withheld. Further, all calls are aggregated - usually every 24hours but can be weekly, for the home network to pay on behalf of their roaming customer. However, such 'abuse' monitoring would be to protect the network, not the customer - as the client has already agreed to pay for all services used whilst the equipment is in his/her care. This of course by extension means any calls made with or without his authority. The duty to ensure that only legitimate calls are made means the customer has to take all reasonable steps to ensure no unauthorised calls are made. A way of doing this is to PIN-protect the SIM card and/or handset. Should the customer choose NOT to do this, then that is clearly their choice and the costs incurred for fraudulent use fall squarely on them.

 

Your sarcasm is noted (and disregarded) - however, there is a duty of care on all sides, and irrespective of the profits made by networks the choice is there - use it or don't use it. If the former, then you pay the price. No condition states your should lock your phone, but as this is stating the obvious - I'm sorry if you feel that we have reached the stage where common sense can be dispensed with unless it is a term specifically forming part of your contract.

[kooglesarmy]

I did accept the above, pretty much without hesitation btw, as I was looking down the barrel of £1800. They weren't obliged to do it.

Especially after watching a piece on BBC news a couple of weeks back about the same subject, all the people interviewed were liable (even the chap who had pin protection on his phone (it was guessed or bypassed) - still liable.

So, expensive lesson learnt, but not as bad as it could have been.

Many, many thanks for everyone's input.

[goodwill]

@kooglesarmy

 

Did you get an itemised bill from o2? What numbers did the crook call?

 

http://www.cubwolf.co.uk/images/buzby.jpg

[kooglesarmy]

Mexican Landlines and interactive text numbers.

Anyone mind if I post a couple on here ?

[buzby]

Why not start a fresh thread...?

[kooglesarmy]

A new thread with a load of random mexican landlines ?

Would anyone want to read that ?

[goodwill]

yes

[kooglesarmy]

As requested, here is a sample of my £1700 o2 bill for fraudulent Mexican calls.

 

DATE TIME NUMBER DEST DURATION COST

20 Feb 0817:29:06 529841330045 MEX 00:19:23 33.03021 Feb 0812:07:55 529841451639 MEX 00:01:49 3.39021 Feb 0812:19:59 529848795061 MEX 00:00:48 1.70021 Feb 0812:21:02 529848762626 MEX 00:00:15 1.70021 Feb 0812:37:32 529841164118 MEX 00:05:50 10.17021 Feb 0812:44:17 529841164118 MEX 00:00:14 1.70021 Feb 0812:44:37 529848032149 MEX 00:02:10 3.82021 Feb 0813:01:43 529847450593 MEX 00:01:19 2.55021 Feb 0813:54:04 525555170159 MEX 00:07:30 12.71021 Feb 0818:26:26 529841340506 MEX 00:01:01 2.12021 Feb 0820:17:19 529841402011 MEX 00:01:47 3.39021 Feb 0820:22:39 529841402011 MEX 00:02:16 4.24021 Feb 0821:11:44 529841350477 MEX 00:00:49 1.70021 Feb 0821:23:14 529841201393 MEX 00:01:18 2.55021 Feb 0821:30:13 529841201393 MEX 00:00:31 1.70021 Feb 0821:30:50 529841201393 MEX 00:00:28 1.70021 Feb 0821:31:57 529841201393 MEX 00:00:41 1.70022 Feb 0811:28:24 529981855425 MEX 00:02:23 4.24022 Feb 0811:36:49 529841375044 MEX 00:04:16 7.630

[buzby]

Yup - being aware of the multiplicity of codes being used means we can add them to our blocking lists, and search for them, knowing what they are.